“Madame Dugazon has just developed a new kind of talent in the rôle of Justine. It was difficult to unite to this degree the most lively and the most passionate sensibility with a _naïveté_ the most sweet and the most attractive. This charming actress has been truly eloquent in the scene of the second act with M. de Longpré. Our best _tragédiennes_ could not render with more energy and with variations more just and more profound all the sentiment of this part, one of the most pathetic that has ever been seen on the stage.”[133] In November of the same year, was produced _La Dot_, a comedy in three acts by Desfontaines, music by Dalayrac, in which Madame Dugazon gave so charming a rendering of the part of the heroine Colette, that a poet, who elected to remain anonymous, but who, M. Campardon thinks, was, in all probability, the author of the piece himself, thanked her in the following verses for the pleasure she had given him: “Dis moi donc par quelle magie, Ne changeant au plus que de nom, Tu fais, à la voix de Thalie, Changer de maintien et de ton? Babet m’avoit semblé parfaite, Je l’admirerois a chaque trait, Et depuis que j’ai vu Colette, Je songe un peu moins à Babet. Plus naturelle et plus sublime, Par un mot, un geste, un soupir, Tout à la fois Colette exprime Le sentiment et le plaisir. Partout c’est la vérité pure, Que Colette prends sur le fait, Et pour dot la simple nature Lui fit présent de son secret.”[134] Madame Dugazon now found herself at the apogee of her talent, and it appeared hardly possible that she could soar any higher, when, in May 1786, her creation of the part of Nina, in _Nina, ou la Folle par amour_, a drama in one act, by Marsollier de Vivetières, music by Dalayrac, exhibited her in a new light and excited among the Parisians an enthusiasm almost unprecedented. The genesis of this piece is interesting. It was suggested to Marsollier by a touching anecdote of a young girl who had lived in the neighbourhood of Sedan. On her wedding morning, the maiden had preceded her lover to the church where the ceremony was to be performed. On nearing it, she was met by a friend, who informed her that the young man had been seized with a sudden attack of illness and was dead. The grief of the unhappy girl was such that she lost her reason. Thenceforth, until her own death, ten years later, she walked daily more than two leagues to the spot where she had arranged to meet her lover, and, on arriving there, would sit down and wait for him the entire day. At length, when the shades of evening were falling, she would rise and retrace her steps, exclaiming: “Let us go. He has not yet arrived; I will return to-morrow.”